g88 ] Our Earth and Its Fellow Planets 



As we look at the other planets, it appears that if there is life 

 in these other worlds, it must be of a kind that is beyond our 

 experience and understanding. 



Mars Science-Fiction Favorite 



Of all the planets, Mars is the one most often used by science- 

 fiction writers as the home of a race of people similar to ourselves. 

 They choose Mars because they have more information on which 

 to base their stories than they have about the other planets. It is 

 one of our closest planetary neighbors, and while many of the 

 other planets are hidden behind dense clouds, the atmosphere of 

 Mars is so thin that we can see through it clearly. 



Mars Through the Telescope: If you look at Mars through a tele- 

 scope it appears mostly orange in color; but patches of other colors 

 show, too. At the top, or at the bottom, of the disk (and some- 

 times at both locations at once) , there is a great patch of white. 

 These patches are apparently fields of snow and ice which we call 

 polar caps. When the northern half of the planet's axis begins to 

 tilt toward the sun, the northern polar cap begins to grow smaller, 

 while the southern polar cap shows a gradual increase in size. 



The diameter of Mars is about 4,200 miles only about half of 

 our earth's. 



THE "CANALS" ON MARS 



The discovery of "canals" on Mars about seventy-five years 

 ago quickly gave rise to the exciting idea that people like our- 

 selves live on that planet. But actually the canal theory started 

 from a misunderstanding! When an Italian astronomer, Giovanni 

 Schiaparelli, was observing Mars through his small telescope, he 

 saw on its surface what looked like a network of fine lines. He 

 noted them as canali, an Italian word meaning "channels." English 

 translations immediately turned this into "canals" a word we use 

 for artificial waterways made by human beings. 



Ever since that time the canals have been a subject for debate; 

 the astronomers have not been able to agree on their description 

 of the "canals," and some even refuse to recognize anything that 



